1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to solar power systems, and, more specifically, to a method and system for automatically generating optimized configurations for a solar power system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solar power systems have provided a source of renewable energy for decades. A typical solar power system includes a set of solar panels that may be installed on a variety of target surfaces, such as, e.g., the roof of a residence. Prior to installation, a designer makes a variety of design decisions in order to determine the overall configuration of the solar power system. Those decisions could specify, for example, a placement for the solar panels or a particular type of solar panel to be used, among other things. Once the designer determines the configuration of the solar power system, a set of solar panels may be physically mounted to the target surface according to that configuration.
One problem with the conventional design process described above is that typical designers may have limited knowledge of solar power systems, and, thus, may make design decisions that fail to produce an optimally performing configuration. This problem is compounded by the fact that solar power system performance is especially non-linear, and, thus, very sensitive to shading. Consequently, applying even small changes to the solar power system configuration may cause the performance of the solar power system to decrease dramatically. Furthermore, configuring solar power systems manually is both time-consuming and expensive.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved technique for configuring a solar power system.